Afrasianet - Does he want to indulge in a desperate and extremely dangerous escalation alongside a crumbling American empire and destroy his social and peaceful model forever?

The outbreak of the Ukraine war was a historic moment revealing the conditions, surprises and cracks of European construction.

Europe seemed to have taken war by surprise other than the one the world had known since the mid-twentieth century. It has achieved peace among its nations with conviction of the absurdity and futility of wars in the industrial age because of the victims and mass destruction they cause, and has achieved stability, unity and prosperity at historically unprecedented levels.

It seemed to have learned much from its history and conflicts, abandoning fascism, Nazism and the nationalism that fuels its conflicts and violence in resolving them, unanimously adopting liberal democracy as the final choice, and facing challenges, disagreements and dangers with wisdom, patience and diplomacy.

Europe's reaction to the Ukraine war was a coup against that, and it returned to the policies of militarism, wars and self-destruction, and beat the drums of war and expensive armament, and Ukraine armed and identified with the American incitement to deepen the conflict and drain Russia and blockade it with the widest economic sanctions historically, and brought down the curtain on the policies of openness and economic cooperation.

Germany, the leader of the European Union, which lost its ability to lead and prevent the war from spreading and escalating, followed this and handed over the European decision to America. Germany could have led a position within NATO that avoided provoking Russia by Ukraine's entry into the alliance, but it didn't!

The German writer, Fabian Scheiddler, warns that the European Union could be completely devastated by the possible escalation of the Ukraine war, but it does nothing to avoid danger and stop the killing, but rather undermines diplomatic attempts to rectify the situation. It has long been known that Ukraine cannot win the war, and at least it has entered a dead end.

This was stated in November 2022  by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Gen. Valery Zalushny. With each day that the war continues, the chances of Ukraine remaining as a sovereign state and reasonable performance diminish.

But the EU denies this simple reality. In its first official act, the new European Parliament pledged on July 17 to support Ukraine militarily until all of its occupied territory is recaptured, regardless of the time needed and the number of victims. You don't need to be a military expert to understand that restoring the entire Donbass and Crimea is completely unrealistic, even because of Ukraine's military recruitment problems.

The parliament's resolution goes further: it "strongly calls for the removal of restrictions on the use of Ukraine's Western weapons systems against military targets on Russian territory," explicitly risking European escalation and the possibility of nuclear war.

It also calls on all member states to permanently allocate 0.25% of their economic output to rearming Ukraine (increasing its military budgets), training Ukrainian troops further and "strengthening" its military industry. The resolution also endorses "an irreversible path for Ukraine to NATO membership," reversing decisions at the previous NATO summit, closing the door to a settlement that embraces Ukraine's future neutrality. There is no mention of diplomatic initiatives whatsoever.

The decision is a testimony to a dangerous escape from reality and unbridled "militarization", reminiscent of the time of the "sleeping pedestrians" before the outbreak of World War I, despite the belief that negotiations alone offer a way out. Vladimir Zelensky himself even said after the failed peace summit in Switzerland, to which Russia was not invited: Russia should participate in the upcoming talks.

The long-repeated pretext about the impossibility of negotiating with Vladimir Putin has been refuted: from the end of February to April 2022, intensive negotiations between the two sides took place with Turkish mediation, resulting in a ten-point plan whereby Ukraine would renounce NATO membership and Russia would withdraw to the February 23, 2022 lines.

Other secret mediations and negotiations took place at the time, involving the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, but they stalled after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kiev on April 9. According to (Western) media reports, Johnson's message at the time was that Ukraine should stop negotiating and continue fighting.

But after two-and-a-half years and tens of thousands of victims, EU countries have committed to a "senseless" program of rearmament and confrontation rather than diplomacy.

According to decisions taken at a recent NATO summit in Washington, new intermediate-range missiles with nuclear warheads will be deployed in Germany for the first time since the eighties. Instead of making Germany safer, it will become a potential target for attacks when escalating.

There has been no public debate or in the German parliament about this important step. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democratic Party achieved only 13.9 percent in the last European parliamentary elections and whose legitimacy was greatly weakened, unleashed another wave of armaments with the stroke of a pen, abandoned the revival of the Treaty on the Dismantling and Prohibition of Intermediate-Range Missiles in Europe, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, and terminated by Donald Trump in 2019.

How is massive rearmament supposed to make Europe safer?!

Armaments continue at the expense of social cohesion and political stability. Instead of investing in education and health care, undermined by decades of austerity, and making public transport suitable for the future, money is being poured into the economy's most destructive and climate-damaging sector: the military-industrial complex. The political system no longer offers citizens future prospects, but social cuts and wars, confidence in political institutions continues to erode and right-wing nationalist forces gain greater support.

Instead of development aid, which is to be significantly reduced in the German draft budget (2025), German and European weapons will reach the countries of the Global South to fuel their conflicts and instability. The resolution of civil disputes has become increasingly secondary to the foreign policy of the European Union, which was once awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The armament of Europe is no longer aimed only at Russia, but increasingly China as well. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced the use of all means against China in the conflict over Taiwan. Thus, the EU is once again following Washington's Strategic Guidelines.

President Barack Obama launched a policy of "Asiacentrism" in 2012 and expanded armament of the Pacific region. German warships sail with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea, worrying Beijing.

What would European politicians say if Chinese warships appeared at sea?!

Behind the military buildup against Beijing is America's fear that China will displace its global economic hegemony. According to purchasing power, China's GDP exceeded that of the United States, and the GDP of the BRICS Group exceeded that of the Group of Seven. America also fears losing the dollar's golden privilege as an international reserve currency in the long run, as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently admitted.

This deprives America of a crucial tool to finance its exorbitant foreign trade deficit. After sanctions against Russia, China, Russia, and countries in the Global South are developing international payment systems that surpass the US dollar, and China is technologically catching up. The doubling of U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric cars shows the U.S. auto industry's inability to compete.

Thus, Republicans and Democrats are increasingly relying on militarization to contain China and constrain its influence. Therefore, they urge EU countries to rearm to keep Russia contained and take joint action against China. But the idea that the "collective West" can militarily prevent China's economic and political weight from growing remains a dangerous illusion.

Does Europe really want to go to war against the world's largest GDP and third-largest nuclear power with 1.3 billion people?

The only rational option is to build a new global security order that includes China and, in the long run, Russia when the Ukraine war ends. This perspective is also necessary because the first major tasks of the future, such as addressing the environmental crisis and the divide between rich and poor, require intensive cooperation. The last thing the world needs is to confront new blocs and conflicts.

Schidler asks: Does the EU still have a choice? Does he want to indulge in a desperate and extremely dangerous escalation alongside a crumbling American empire and destroy his social and peaceful model forever? Or does it adopt an independent and mediating position to make peace with diplomacy and cooperation rather than confrontation?

Europe's fate depends not only on this choice, but also that of much of the rest of the world.